Once the bustling heart of Christian pilgrimage, Bethlehem now faces shuttered hotels, empty streets and a shrinking Christian community, while Israel’s assault on Gaza and the tightening grip of occupation destroy hopes of peace at the birthplace of Christ, writes Father GEOFF BOTTOMS
The cold war, desegregation and affirmative action
Anti-racism in the US has long been subverted by the elevation of a few role models rather than meaningful equality for all – and the latest fad for policing manners and language won’t save it, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
THEN AND NOW: Civil rights marchers in Washington call for integrated schools, 1963; and (right) students rally outside the Supreme Court during the hearing on affirmative action in college admissions, October 2022
After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
The June 2025 attacks on Iran have heightened the risk of a wider war, exposed the fiction of a rules-based international order and left ordinary Iranians trapped between external aggression and internal repression, says the Committee for Defence of Iranian People’s Rights
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
The long-term effects of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange mean that the impact of war lasts well beyond a ceasefire
AS the US Supreme Court aspires to drive a nail into the coffin of affirmative action, it is important to recognise how the cold war helped to shape the mid-20th century civil rights people’s victories and the consequent policy of affirmative action in education.
Some may find that connecting the conflict between the US and the USSR to the formal establishment of African-American citizen rights is far-fetched.
But the facts speak otherwise.
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Sixty years after his murder, it is up to all of us to defy ruling-class attempts to sanitise or distort his revolutionary legacy by upholding his deep understanding of capitalism’s ties to racism and empire, writes ISAAC SANEY
ZOLTAN ZIGEDY reflects on the lessons from two books looking at the US labour movement and the recent history of spontaneous mass uprisings – and finds two pernicious ideologies working against the interests of the people